Sunday, December 18, 2011

A popular rhetorical cliché used on the anniversaries of
Indian independence, inquires if indeed, we Indians are really free. This
cliché urges us to consider independence not as a single moment in time, but as
a process towards realizing a utopian society free of all social evils and
problems. It would not be out of place therefore, to ask a similar question of
Goan liberation, and stress that liberation cannot mean a single moment in
time, but must necessarily be seen as a process, of our deepening commitment to
the democratic project.

The introduction of Indian democracy to Goa has been an
interesting process. Unfortunately however, it has also meant the abandonment,
or erasure of the Portuguese language in Goa. It should be stressed however,
that the learning of Portuguese by the contemporary Goan, is not unconnected
with the larger project of greater democratization of Goan society. On the contrary,
the fulfillment of the democratic project is critically tied to more Goans
learning and using the Portuguese language.

This stress on the Portuguese language is not to give this
language a rightful place in Goan history, nor to legitimize the traits of
those Goans who have a marked ‘Portuguese’ aspect in their lifestyle. Such an
argument borders on recognizing Portuguese for its value as Portuguese, and does
not hold much value from a cultural-nationalist point of view. An argument that
would (and should) hold value from a nationalist position, is one that is tied
to the manner in which Portuguese is linked to the arrangement of power in
contemporary Goan society.

To wholly understand the significance of this argument, it is
essential that we underline a well-rehearsed argument; colonialism in any part
of the world, and this holds true for Goa as well, was not merely the result of
unilateral foreign domination. On the contrary, colonialism persisted thanks to
the participation of local elites in the colonial project. Thus, as English ensured access to power in
the colonial British-Indian administration, and education in English models of
education ensured participation in the power forms of the British Empire, so
too in Goa, the adoption of Portuguese was critical to gaining power not merely
in the administrative and political sphere, but also in the social. Righting
this balance of power is critical to the democratic project.

In colonial times the Portuguese language was so intimately
associated with elite groups, both Hindu as well as Catholic, that the
knowledge of Portuguese was, and continues to be, effectively a caste marker of
the dominant groups in Goan society. Thus for example, at least among Catholic
circles, despite the predominance that English has come to take as a marker of
social mobility and status, to come from a ‘Portuguese speaking background’,
continues to indicate one’s (longer) privileged location within the hierarchies
of Goan Catholic society. Furthermore,
it is not uncommon to have it pointed out, that Portuguese was not a lingua franca within Goa but one largely
used by the elites. In making this seemingly innocent factual assertion
however, one is simultaneously also subtly marking the boundaries of Portuguese
heritage within Goan society. Thus for example, as a result of this logic, it
is overwhelmingly the lifestyles and material culture of the landed elite that
have been focused on as representations of Indo-Portuguese architecture, while
those of the more humble are largely ignored. These demarcations ensure a
privileged focus on the lifestyles and material culture of just this small
elite segment of Goan Catholic society, casting the rest into a kind of
cultural barbarity. Take for example the manner in which the vibrant Tiatr tradition, primarily because it
was not, and continues to not be, the entertainment of the Goan elites, is
constantly shrugged off as ‘lacking standard’ despite the fact of its stellar
role as a medium of social analysis and entertainment. To encourage a broader
learning of Portuguese would effectively challenge this link between social
status and the language. If more Goans become ‘Portuguese speaking’, it would
make nonsense of the ‘Portuguese speaking background’ marker that we currently
use, effectively frustrating, albeit partially, the manner in which social
difference is articulated today.

More critically, and moving beyond the possibly restricted
frames of the Goan Catholic, knowledge of Portuguese was critical to the
maintenance of control over the State administration as well as State
documentation of land rights. Not a few family, and caste group, fortunes were
made by virtue of this restricted access to the language in colonial Goa. Even
though English has now replaced Portuguese as a State language; as the
continuous stream of persons perusing land records in the State archives in
Panjim would indicate, Portuguese continues to be critical to being able to
assert, and mask, claims to land. Today, when subaltern groups in contemporary
Goa face even an greater threat of access to land rights, it would be a strategic error to allow control of the interpretation
of Portuguese language documents and laws, to be based in the hands of just the
few, largely ‘upper’ caste, groups that have resumed learning the Portuguese
language.

The popular history of the Portuguese period in Goa has
largely been restricted to the gory tales of the initial conquest of the island
of Goa, of the Inquisition, and the dramatization of the anti-colonial episodes
in the territory’s history. To a large extent, this nationalist history
dissuades Hindus from subaltern castes from studying the language. This has ensured
that it is solely dominant-caste narratives that are incorporated into the
histories of the territory, preventing alternative and liberatory narratives to
emerge from a re-reading of the texts and narratives of the period of
Portuguese sovereignty over the territory. It is little known for example, that the
knowledge of Portuguese is critical to the bahujan
challenge to Hindu upper-caste groups’ monopolistic control of the Goan temples.
This monopolistic control of the temples was forged in particular through these
latter groups’ knowledge of Portuguese.

Finally, is the argument that rests on the recognition that the
emergence of equality is facilitated when there is parity in representational
power. While a number of Portuguese scholars work on Goan history and society,
it is extremely difficult to find Goan scholars who work on explaining
Portuguese society, and its history unrelated to Goa. When we are able to
effectively build up this band of scholars, who can represent the workings of
the Portuguese to Goa, India, and the world; and engage in Portugal’s press and
academy, with their representations of Goa; then we would lay the definitive foundations
for greater equality between the two spaces. To do this however, requires that
the Goan learn Portuguese.

For these reasons therefore, the learning of Portuguese by
the contemporary Goan, is an essential component of our democratic project that
the action of the Indian Union in December 1961 sought to forward.

About Me

Itinerant mendicant captures two aspects of my life perfectly. My educational formation has seen me traverse various terrains, geographical as well as academic. After a Bachelor's in law from the National Law School of India, I worked for a while in the environmental and developmental sector. After a Master's in the Sociology of Law, I obtained a Doctorate in Anthropology in Lisbon for my study of the citizenship experience of Goan Catholics. I am currently a post-doctoral researcher at the Centre for Research in Anthropology at the University Institute of Lisbon, but continue to shuttle between Lisbon and Goa.
I see myself as a mendicant not only because so many of my voyages have been funded by scholarships and grants but because I will accept almost any offer for sensorial and intellectual stimulation, and thank the donor for it.
This blog operates as an archive of my writings in the popular press.